Clocking in at more than 600 pages, Smith slogs through just about every aspect of remote viewing — from the mind boggling to the mundane — from the first days of its development through its eventual demise as a sanctioned government project.

Smith was a U.S. Army Intelligence Officer and among the original remote viewers. Here he doggedly documents the endless and banal bureaucratic twists and turns of managing a super secretive, highly classified intelligence operation — but, wow! — it was a spy game unlike any other in the already dark and spooky underworld of international espionage.

Most readers eager for sensational stories of extraordinary paranormal happenings will find themselves enduring some eye-glazing moments as Smith plods through all the crushingly boring — the red tape, the funding methods, the inter-governmental squabbling. However, those who wade through it will be rewarded with a greater perspective about what really happened inside our government’s unlikely foray into “psychic spying.”

Paul Smith

But there is much to amaze as well. There’s lots of juicy paranormal stuff — psychic powers, UFO tangents, channeling strange entities, spoon bending — that will satisfy the inquiring mind.

It would take pages to provide a truly comprehensive review of everything Smith covers in this book, so let me focus on one area where I think the author provides invaluable insight into a deeply controversial topic.

The insight I am talking about is the window inside Smith gives us on certain people who emerged as high profile public remote viewers after the official program ended — especially Ed Dames and David Morehouse.

Smith tells that Dames and Morehouse are two guys who more or less went off the deep end and were ensnared by the most unscientific and fringy possibilities associated with remote viewing.

Smith levels his biggest criticism at David Morehouse, whom he describes as a barely involved, minimally trained slacker who was, if not actually AWOL, absent for much of the time when he was supposed to be on duty working RV sessions. Morehouse also had periods of mental instability, a disastrous illicit affair, was once suicidal — none of which was precipitated by the strangeness of remote viewing — although Morehouse sought to us RV as an excuse for his behavior when he was facing court martial.

Yet Morehouse is active today as a “celebrity” remote viewer, promoting himself as one of the original “Psychic Warriors” (That’s the title of his book). He also peddles a RV study course, he leads remote viewing seminars and is popular on the lecture tour. But Smith paints Morehouse as little more than a failure at remote viewing, a fraud and a blatant, self-serving opportunist.

But the guy who really sucks up all the oxygen in the world of remote viewing today is former U.S. Army Major Ed Dames.

Smith is somewhat kinder to Dames in terms of his work ethic and commitment to military intelligence. Smith even gives him high marks for his professionalism as a soldier. However, when it came to performing the actual remote viewing sessions, Dames was rarely the one sitting in the psychic spying seat. Rather, Dames served more often as a monitor and facilitator for other remote viewers. His own ability to remote view were unremarkable, and he barely worked more than a half dozen official RV sessions himself.

Smith writes that Dames also frequently thwarted protocol by improperly “front loading” remote viewing sessions — that is, Dames frequently attempted to “lead” or bias remote viewers with his own unstoppable obsession with UFOs and his own pet theories about extraterrestrials.

When Dames could not goad disciplined remote viewers into coughing up questionable information about ETs, he would go ahead and conduct his own sessions with sloppy protocols, which would, not surprisingly, confirm his own belief system about aliens from other worlds.

Even worse, Dames displayed an extreme proclivity for apocalyptic scenarios. Again and again, Dames came up with end-of-the-world predictions both during his time with military intelligence, and for years after as a public figure — and he continues to do today. Dames has appeared dozens of times on the hugely popular Coast to Coast radio program hosted by Art Bell, and over the years had made one disaster-scenario prediction after another, none of which have ever come true.

Smith also sharply criticizes Ed Dames for the claims he has made about his involvement with the development of the remote viewing program — in short, Smith says that many of Dames’ claims about what he did and to help develop the military remote viewer program are flat out false. Dames was a far more marginal player than he has long advertised himself to be, according to Smith.

So this is an outstanding book which is an invaluable historical document that both dispels the many myths that still linger about remote viewing, and which provides incredible insight — a clarifying window into one of the strangest times in the history of U.S. espionage and intelligence operations.

Please see also my reviews of these books on astral travel and remote viewing:

Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of: BIRD BRAIN GENIUS

Certainly INGO SWANN was one of the most remarkable individuals to grace our planet in the past century.

Since his death in 2013, his legend has only continued to grow. That’s because his most famous project slowly continues to gain traction and public acceptance — which is amazing since that project was (and is) REMOTE VIEWING — the ESP technique so repugnant and deeply loathed by skeptics and mainstream science.

Briefly: Remote viewing is the term used to describe a method of “psychic spying” as developed at the behest of U.S. Military Intelligence and the CIA — who tasked scientists at the Stanford Research Institute to come up with a way to use psychic ability or ESP in a way that was scientific, manageable, repeatable and able to provide solid intelligence results.

Ingo Swann is often called “The Father of Remote Viewing,” even though he was always the first to admit that remote viewing was the product of “at least 500 people.” Among the brilliant men who spearheaded remote viewing research was the quantum-electronics physicist Harold Puthoff and laser physicist Russell Targ.

But, no doubt, remote viewing could never have come to be what it is today without the strange, brilliant and quirky mind of Ingo Swann — and I am going to end my comments about the history of RV development here because I want to turn my comments to this small publication.

It’s written by a man who was a personal friend of Ingo Swann. RAUL daSILVA said he often got together with Ingo for lunch, chats or long walks in their New York City home.

Raul daSilva

Thus, daSilva describes himself not as a professional colleague, fellow psychic or artist — but rather, just a friend who had nothing to do with Swann’s amazing career as a U.S. Government intelligence agent, psychic researcher and noted artist.

In this short manuscript, daSilva offers deeper insights into the character of Mr. Swann as observed when his defenses were down, that is, not working and just being himself in his spare time. That’s the value of this document, which is less than 20 pages.

Even though the author is a lifetime professional writer, this document is not well written. At best, it has the informal tone of a guy writing a letter to a friend or family member.

In just 20 pages he manages to wander off subject, digress, fail at getting to the point, and all manner of other writing transgressions too numerous to mention — but it doesn’t matter.

That’s because people with a keen interest in all things psychic (and especially scientific remote viewing) will find this brief window into the personal life and character of Ingo Swann an invaluable contribution to the historic record of a remarkable, but often mysterious man.

DaSilva portrays Swann as a man in every-day possession of remarkable psychic ability, and more than that — a man who seemed almost to straddle time and space, and with deep understanding of such issues as reincarnation, nonhuman entities and more.

If you have a fascination with all things remote viewing, it might be worth a couple of dollars to gain some tidbits of “inside information” about the one man who played the most central role in developing it.

Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer, served as an advocate for homeless people as a VISTA Volunteer, and taught journalism at the University of North Dakota for five years. He is the author of: BIRD BRAIN GENIUS

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Thanks for visiting Top 10 Book Reviews. I hope you enjoy reading the eclectic selection of books reviews presented on this site. If you want your book reviewed, please leave a message, or contact Ken at ken.korczak@gmail.com

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